Chapter 10: An Alliance Nobody Announces

Maren walked into camp at 0847 with a topographic printout folded into quarters and no expression that suggested she thought this required one.

Kai was feeding the fire. He heard her before he saw her—boot placement deliberate, weight distribution even, someone who had learned to move through underbrush without announcing herself and had been doing it long enough that it wasn't effort anymore. He did not reach for anything. He looked up.

She was taller than she'd seemed at intake. Or the forest made her seem taller. She stood at the camp's edge—not in it, not outside it, precisely at the threshold—and unfolded the topographic printout with both hands and held it toward him like a building inspector presenting a compliance report.